The present invention relates to a method to route in a telecommunication system an incoming call to a suitable destination terminal a related method to select the suitable destination terminal, a receiving terminal able to perform the method to route the call defined in, a destination terminal selecting arrangement able to perform the method to select the suitable destination terminal, and a telecommunication system including such a receiving terminal and such a destination terminal selecting arrangement.
Such a method to route an incoming call to a suitable destination terminal and related equipment are already known in the art, e.g. from the U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,382 entitled xe2x80x98Telecommunication system having capability of notifying the occurrence of forwarding of an incoming call to a terminalxe2x80x99. Therein, FIG. 1 shows a conventional telecommunication system that has the capability of transferring or forwarding a call from a receiving terminal to a destination terminal. In the known telecommunication system, a central control unit and terminal registration memory in a switching station co-operate to forward a call. The registration memory registers a terminal together with the address or dial number whereon the terminal can be reached and information indicating whether the call transfer service is activated or not for that terminal. If a call is received by a first terminal whose call transfer service is activated, the switching station automatically transfers the call to a second terminal entitled to receive a call sent to the first mentioned terminal. Thus, in the known system, all calls sent to the first terminal are automatically transferred to the second terminal if the call transfer service is activated for these two terminals. In such a system, the destination terminal, i.e. the first terminal in case the call transfer service is not activated or the second terminal in case the call transfer service is activated, may not be the most suitable terminal to handle the call. The destination terminal even may be unable to handle the call. If for example the first terminal is a fixed telephone terminal, the second terminal is a mobile telephone set, and both terminals have their call forwarding service activated, a fax call received by the fixed terminal will be transferred automatically to the mobile terminal which is unable to handle this call so that the call will be left unanswered.
It is an object of he present invention to provide a method to forward a call to a suitable destination terminal and equipment to perform this method as described above, but wherein a call coming in on a received terminal is forwarded to the most suitable destination terminal whereto the call may be forwarded, so that calls are always received with the highest possible quality.
According to the invention, this object is achieved by the method to route an incoming call from a receiving terminal to a destination terminal as defined in claim 1, the method to select a suitable destination terminal as defined by claim 2, the receiving terminal able to perform the method to route an incoming call as defined in claim 3, the destination terminal selecting arrangement able to perform the method of selecting a suitable destination terminal as defined in claim 4, and the telecommunication system including such a receiving terminal and such a destination terminal selecting arrangement as defined in claim 8.
Indeed, if all terminals within a certain area register their presence and capabilities with a destination terminal selecting arrangement, this destination terminal selecting arrangement is able to select within a certain area the terminal with the best capabilities to handle an incoming call. A terminal which receives an incoming call thereto determines the type of service where the call belongs to, for example a fax call or an electronic mail, and indicates to the destination terminal selecting arrangement the type of call it has received. The destination terminal selecting arrangement thereupon determines the most suitable terminal within the area of the receiving terminal to handle the call and informs the receiving terminal about the address of this most suitable terminal so that the receiving terminal can forward the incoming call to the address of the most suitable terminal, thereby ensuring a high quality receipt of the call. Summarising, according to the present invention, incoming calls are intelligently forwarded to the most suitable destination terminal after a decision where to forward the call, based on the type of service that is associated with the incoming call, has been taken by an arrangement that collects terminal capabilities information.
It is to be noted that the term xe2x80x98areaxe2x80x99 used in the claims and throughout the remainder of the description does not necessarily mean a geographical area with limited boundaries. An area, according to the present invention, is a collection of terminals which are allowed to transfer calls between one another by their owners. Thus, the fixed and mobile telephone terminals, owned by a single person and able to receive voice calls, the facsimile terminal of this person""s secretary, able to receive fax calls, and the personal computer of this person""s neighbour or employer, able to receive data files and electronic mail, may belong to the same area although their physical locations can differ widely.
A Another remark is that the term xe2x80x98callxe2x80x99 used in the claims should not be interpreted as covering circuit switched communication only. Any service request, like for instance a request for an internet-like multimedia service is meant to fall within the scope of the term xe2x80x98callxe2x80x99.
It is also to be noticed that the term xe2x80x98comprisingxe2x80x99, used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being limitative to the means listed thereafter. Thus, the scope of the expression xe2x80x98a device comprising means A and Bxe2x80x99 should not be limited to devices consisting only of components A and B. It means that with respect to the present invention, the only relevant components of the device are A and B.
Similarly, it is to be noticed that the term xe2x80x98coupledxe2x80x99, also used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being limitative to direct connections only. Thus, the scope of the expression xe2x80x98a device A coupled to a device Bxe2x80x99 should not be limited to devices or systems wherein an output of device A is directly connected to an input of device B. It means that there exists a path between an output of A and an input of B which may be a path including other devices or means.
An additional feature of the destination terminal selecting arrangement according to the present invention is defined in claim 5.
In this way, by automatically de-registering terminals which have not confirmed their presence in a certain area during a predetermined time interval, it is avoided that the terminal registration memory of the destination terminal selecting arrangement contains invalid information leading to call transfers to terminals which are no longer present within the area wherein a call has to be forwarded.
Another feature of the destination terminal selecting arrangement according to the present invention is defined by claim 6.
Indeed, the destination terminal selecting arrangement can be special hardware equipment or software which can run on any device, allowing this device to become destination terminal selector for one or more area""s. The in hardware or software implemented destination terminal selecting arrangement for example may be integrated in a network switching node as indicated by claim 6 or in a terminal as indicated by claim 7.